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Should Christians Burn Sage?
Smudging, the burning of bundled sage, is an indigenous practice that has been around for centuries. Various people groups throughout history have used this for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. The indigenous beauty blogger, Bianca Millar, says she and her husband burn sage along with other herbs to “thank the Creator for the new day and send up our prayers.” Burning sage is also used by herbalists or alternative healers. Claretha Yeager, an Acupuncturist and reiki master based in Chicago says she frequently uses smudging—or burning sage—to help rid her patients of negative emotions. She claims that sage smoke unburdens people of their negative energy to feel better. Burning sage has …
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How Should We Think About Halloween?
A number of articles are available advising Christians to have nothing to do with Halloween. And I do agree that Christians have no business celebrating a holiday that glorifies something that delights the enemy of our souls. And potentially opens us up to demonic harrassment, to boot! But if we’ve got kids, especially kids in public school or who hang around other kids in the neighborhood, it’s entirely possible that parents can feel pressured to do something about Halloween. After all, it’s pretty hard to hide under a rock for the whole month of October. A number of houses on our street are more decorated for Halloween than for Christmas!…
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Halloween: Are Witches and Wizards Evil?
My husband and I went to see a movie this week, but the theater near us listed mostly zombie movies and walking-dead stuff. Not our thing. And some of our neighbors are sporting graveyard-themed decorations as elaborate as what folks used to bring out only for Christmas. No one seems to remember that the name "Halloween" started out as "All Hallows Eve" or "Hallowed Eve," the night before All Saints Day. So this seems as good a time as any to re-run a blog post I once ran about witches and wizards. You can read the original for a string of comments that followed, which I won't repeat here: Six…
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Generation Hex: Is Every Witch Wicked?
My friend and former student Marla Alupoaicei had little interaction with Wiccans until she was in college. There she met a girl in a writing class who told her, “I’m a white witch.” Marla didn’t know what to say, and having been taught to stay away from anyone involved with witchcraft, she remained silent. She still regrets being unequipped to have a spiritual conversation with that girl. The experience, though, led to the release of a new book, Generation Hex (Harvest House), which Marla wrote with her brother-in-law, Dillon Burroughs, a staff writer for the John Ankerberg show. In the book she deals with many misconceptions about Wicca, five of…
